Taking the stand before the jury for the first time, Sam Bankman-Fried recounts familiar events we've heard described by previous witnesses, but gives a very different version of those stories.
The allow-negative story is particularly hard to believe. How would giving Alameda an unlimited line of credit resolve the problem? So, let's say next time this happens, Alameda is able to backstop trillions of dollars in trades, then Alameda would owe trillions of dollars? What's step 2 of this plan?
'From the early, early, mornin', to the early, early night...
....good golly, Miss Molly! Little Richard, 1958
Yes, Molly, thanks indeed...but I'd feel more than a little guilty if I didn't express that thanks with a little more than words. I estimate that you've devoted over 60 hours to courtroom, writing, and live streaming time, in addition to your travel time and expenses. Substack doesn't make it easy to make a one time contribution, I tried to be creative with them, but it's a lot easier to bite the bullet and overcome my strong aversion to PayPal. I had problems with Venmo, and I know others have as well, I believe it's because of their anal insistence on getting your 'legal full name'. I have at least 4 variations of mine that appear on various documents, pick a name, any name...
Anyway, I did $20, a nice, manageable number for most people.
Reporting from Michael Lewis land--his Judging Sam podcast. During the Monday lunch break Lewis complained that the trial was boring, again. Sam's direct testimony was fine, but of course that was all in his book, so we "know" all that already. (It's amazing how he is openly claiming that his book was ghost written by Sam--that the book is Sam's version of the story.)
Then the beginning of the cross examination--Lewis was clearly uncomfortable. Well, it was "boring" because Sam isn't being "fun." He's just answering "yes" or "no" and that's not the "fun Sam." Lewis seems to be saying that word salad Sam is fun and the fact that he has been reined in is not fun. As if "fun" is the purpose of a legal proceeding.
Lewis seems to have total contempt for the legal process, not to mention anyone who doesn't see the world or Sam the way he does.
Report from Michael Lewis land: in his Nov 1 podcast, he claims that most of the money "is still there"--it wasn't "spent" it was "invested." When his producer Lidia Jean Kott tries to explain to him that making investments with fraudulently obtained funds is still fraud, Michael interrupts her and says, "But that's not what happened here." He is sticking to his belief that taking FTX funds was not fraud. He says Sam "borrowed" it and "put it at risk," and that was the problem.
He also complained about the legal process again--each side exaggerates. No one, apparently, tells the story in the proper narrative form the way he does.
He repeated his assertion that the "crime" doesn't make sense--why would you steal money to invest in AI? His best answer is that Sam wanted a trillion dollars and thought he could get there with the investments--a trillion dollars to change the world, I guess.
I don't recall, but maybe -- I was such an incompetent klutz in that thing, I only wanted to pass on what I'd kind of overheard of ML talking to his assistant, saying that he thought he recognized a guy he know at Solomon jury; shortly after that, he confirmed, 'yes, it is, I'm sure of it!' After fumbling through that I closed my screen and put in the Air Pods so I could listen to the rest of that long narration and get other things done. Talking for that long I'd need not only a snack, but a nap...
Was anything brought up in the trial about ftx tokenized stocks options.
I know they had a seperate entity purchasing like a apple share for each of their tokenized share apparently.
I cant find any information what happened to these and this seems like very clear and obvious securities fraud to me. If not I would like to announce my secret stock exchange that writes an iou for each stock you purchase.
The FTX trial, day fourteen: Same events, new stories
Thanks for doing this Molly, it is a great service you are doing for us.
The allow-negative story is particularly hard to believe. How would giving Alameda an unlimited line of credit resolve the problem? So, let's say next time this happens, Alameda is able to backstop trillions of dollars in trades, then Alameda would owe trillions of dollars? What's step 2 of this plan?
'From the early, early, mornin', to the early, early night...
....good golly, Miss Molly! Little Richard, 1958
Yes, Molly, thanks indeed...but I'd feel more than a little guilty if I didn't express that thanks with a little more than words. I estimate that you've devoted over 60 hours to courtroom, writing, and live streaming time, in addition to your travel time and expenses. Substack doesn't make it easy to make a one time contribution, I tried to be creative with them, but it's a lot easier to bite the bullet and overcome my strong aversion to PayPal. I had problems with Venmo, and I know others have as well, I believe it's because of their anal insistence on getting your 'legal full name'. I have at least 4 variations of mine that appear on various documents, pick a name, any name...
Anyway, I did $20, a nice, manageable number for most people.
Reporting from Michael Lewis land--his Judging Sam podcast. During the Monday lunch break Lewis complained that the trial was boring, again. Sam's direct testimony was fine, but of course that was all in his book, so we "know" all that already. (It's amazing how he is openly claiming that his book was ghost written by Sam--that the book is Sam's version of the story.)
Then the beginning of the cross examination--Lewis was clearly uncomfortable. Well, it was "boring" because Sam isn't being "fun." He's just answering "yes" or "no" and that's not the "fun Sam." Lewis seems to be saying that word salad Sam is fun and the fact that he has been reined in is not fun. As if "fun" is the purpose of a legal proceeding.
Lewis seems to have total contempt for the legal process, not to mention anyone who doesn't see the world or Sam the way he does.
Molly I can't believe you streamed for five hours last night!!!!
And brought it the whole time, by the end I would have been like "SBF... was being... annoying..zzzzzz"
Hey Molly, good news! I think Hunter has a buyer for your 'bus art'...he wants a small commission, but you'd still net about $12 bucks out of it...
Report from Michael Lewis land: in his Nov 1 podcast, he claims that most of the money "is still there"--it wasn't "spent" it was "invested." When his producer Lidia Jean Kott tries to explain to him that making investments with fraudulently obtained funds is still fraud, Michael interrupts her and says, "But that's not what happened here." He is sticking to his belief that taking FTX funds was not fraud. He says Sam "borrowed" it and "put it at risk," and that was the problem.
He also complained about the legal process again--each side exaggerates. No one, apparently, tells the story in the proper narrative form the way he does.
He repeated his assertion that the "crime" doesn't make sense--why would you steal money to invest in AI? His best answer is that Sam wanted a trillion dollars and thought he could get there with the investments--a trillion dollars to change the world, I guess.
I don't recall, but maybe -- I was such an incompetent klutz in that thing, I only wanted to pass on what I'd kind of overheard of ML talking to his assistant, saying that he thought he recognized a guy he know at Solomon jury; shortly after that, he confirmed, 'yes, it is, I'm sure of it!' After fumbling through that I closed my screen and put in the Air Pods so I could listen to the rest of that long narration and get other things done. Talking for that long I'd need not only a snack, but a nap...
Was anything brought up in the trial about ftx tokenized stocks options.
I know they had a seperate entity purchasing like a apple share for each of their tokenized share apparently.
I cant find any information what happened to these and this seems like very clear and obvious securities fraud to me. If not I would like to announce my secret stock exchange that writes an iou for each stock you purchase.
Insightful reporting as always, thank you